Novel（ISBN=9780156030915）

　　"Sly, intelligent, hilarious." (The Charlotte Observer )PRAISE FOR THE HALF-MAMMALS OF DIXIE "Singleton's relentlessly offbeat stories are a miasma of flea markets, palm readers, bowling alleys, and alligators, offering a disturb-ingly askew-at times, downright surreal-vision of the South." (Entertainment Weekly )

　　Set in the town of Gruel, South Carolina, this first novel by George Singleton, master of the comic short story, is the tale of a young man named Novel (his brother's name is James; his sister's is Joyce), a professional snake handler who stumbles across strange doings while he sits in a motel room writing his autobiography. As he struggles to recount his life story, he uncovers-and finds himself starring in-a decades-old town secret, one that can blow him and his fellow citizens sky-high. Funny as only George Singleton can be, full of Southern mischief and wit, Novel is a crazed and crazy fictional whirlwind of drinking, motel-living, art-forgery-committing, pool-playing redneck charm.

　　George Singleton holds a degree in philosophy from Furman University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Nearly seventy of his stories have been published nationally in magazines and anthologies. Singleton teaches writing at South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with the clay artist Glenda Guion and their eleven dogs and one cat.